I'm beginning to hate the Internet.

Rather, I'm beginning to hate the lack of it wherever I go. You are probably familiar with the fact that I can access the internet only once a week when I go home, if you've been reading my blogs. Even that was ruined, at least for the past 2-3 weeks. I come home for the weekend, eager to blog and check my mail, and my parents tell me that the modem is kaput. Try to connect to the net, and you get "Error 633: The port cannot be found or is busy", or something to that effect. I knew the port couldn't be busy; we had no applications which used the COM1 port. With some tweaks here and there, it started working, but not for long. As soon as the computer was rebooted, the same error message appeared when one tried to connect to the net. Doing the same thing didn't fix the modem this time. So we assumed getting a new one would solve the problem. But, the day being a Sunday, no shops open, no modem. I had to wait for another week.



Next weekend, I come home; we have a new modem, but the same problem. It seems the modem worked fine till the computer was rebooted. Obviously, I began to see a pattern here. But I still couldn't fix it.



The next weekend, i.e., this weekend, I hit the jackpot. I completely understood what the problem was. Now we have two working modems. The fault didn't lie in the modem, it was the OS. Microsoft's OS. Windows XP. Service pack 2. In an attempt to secure the internet connection with a firewall, XP had done something, which was the source of all my misery.



I want wireless internet. But that's not gonna happen, at least not now. For that to happen, there have to be Wi-Fi zones wherever I go, and I have to have a Notebook Computer, with wireless functionality. The only free Wi-Fi zone (as a matter of fact, the ONLY Wi-Fi zone, free or not) in Chennai is at the Railway Station. And I won't be visiting that place too often.



While I'm doing this, there's this guy on the phone boasting about his MP3 collection, but unfortunately he doesn't have an MP3 player, so he wants me to write some on an Audio CD. What do I get in return? I don't know. He keeps saying that he'll gimme his entire collection, but that doesn't seem to be happening. I'll have to think it over.



I'm seriously considering applying for the internet connection at College even though it's extremely unreliable and slow. Even though you can't use Yahoo Messenger. Even though you can't download any music. Even though you can't browse websites which aren't education related. I hate my life. Maybe I shouldn't, but I do. At least for now.



Update: 3 weeks worth of updates at College Life. Be there, or be square.